More Articles

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

DETROIT — A race-worthy Corvette, a sumptuous Mercedes C-Class and other glitzy new models
caught the eye at this year’s North American International Auto Show, but larger trends in the auto
industry were also on display.

Ford’s aluminum-clad F-150 shows us that automakers are figuring out how to improve fuel economy
and still give Americans the big vehicles they want. Porsche’s 911 Targa and offerings from
Volkswagen and Subaru demonstrate that buyers still love performance cars, no matter what their
budget. And new mainstream cars like the Honda Fit and Chrysler 200 will have to work hard to
compete in a market that’s not growing as fast as it once did.

Here is a look at five trends gleaned from the media-preview days of the show, which opens to
the public today:

Glimpse of the future: Infiniti, Kia, Volkswagen, Nissan, Audi, Mini, Volvo, Honda and other
automakers showed concepts, which are experimental cars that test design ideas and new
technology.

Toyota’s FT-1, a sinewy sports car, reflects the company’s desire to shed its stodgy reputation
and build cars that make your heart pound. The clean, white Volvo XC coupe, made of high-strength
steel, shows that Scandinavian safety can be sexy. Volkswagen’s BlueMotion concept — a souped-up
Passat — shows technical prowess, deactivating cylinders from its four-cylinder engine to get an
estimated 42 mpg on the highway.

Some concepts are just trial balloons. Honda’s space-age FCEV barely looks drivable; it’s just
testing the design limits for Honda’s new fuel-cell cars. Others, like Kia’s radical GT4 Stinger
sports car, may be headed to showrooms.

Sales trends: It’s become a buyer’s market, and the industry knows it.

Automakers and analysts expect total U.S. sales between 16 million and 16.5 million this year.
That’s a return to pre-recession levels and a natural place for sales to be, based on population
and other factors. But there’s a catch: The easy sales have already been made.

Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American CEO, says the big sales gains — at least 1 million a year for
four straight years — were driven by pent-up demand from people who held on to their cars through
the recession and needed new ones. But that demand is drying up; many are forecasting industry
sales gains of 500,000 or less this year.

“I call it a leveling off,” Lentz said. “We’re going to rely more on the fundamentals of a
strengthening economy that will grow the market.”

Engineering: At past shows, nobody talked much about what the cars were made of. The widespread
use of aluminum in the body of Ford’s new F-150 pickup truck changed that.
Alloy is now a buzzword.

The F-150 — whose body is made of aluminum alloys — had everyone talking about materials. Toyota
pointed out the aluminum hood of the hybrid Prius. Honda said it uses magnesium for steering beams.
The electric BMW i3 is made of carbon fiber. Volvo promises high-strength boron steel.

In the future, expect even more discussion about materials, their properties, their cost and
their benefits or drawbacks. The carbon fiber used on the hood of the Corvette Stingray, for
example, is half the weight of aluminum, said chief engineer Tadge Juechter. But carbon fiber also
has drawbacks. It’s pricey and takes longer to form into parts — hardly ideal for high-production
models. And steel still has its place. Beneath the aluminum, the F-150’s frame is made of
high-strength steel.

“It’s about choosing the right material for the right purpose,” said Art St. Cyr, vice president
of product planning for American Honda.

Size matters: Using new materials does more than just shed weight. It also debunks the widely
held theory that cars and trucks will have to get smaller, or use batteries or other alternative
power, in order to meet strict federal gas-mileage requirements.

That’s good news for the industry. Vehicles have quietly been getting bigger for the past few
years, to the point that compacts are as big as older midsize cars.

So does performance: Those fuel-economy mandates once appeared to signal the death of sporty
cars. But of the 50-plus new models being introduced in Detroit, more than a dozen are performance
cars.